CAPE Phase 2 Launches June 29, 2026: What Importers Need to Know

When Does CAPE Phase 2 Open, and What Does It Cover?

CAPE Phase 2 is scheduled to open June 29, 2026. Phase 1, live since April 20, 2026, was deliberately narrow — it processed the cleanest, most automatable IEEPA entries: unliquidated entries and entries within 80 days of liquidation. Phase 2 widens the funnel to two categories Phase 1 could not handle:

• Reconciliation entries — entries flagged for post-summary reconciliation, where final values were not fixed at the time of entry.
• Antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) entries — entries that also carry AD/CVD, which require extra handling.

If your IEEPA-period entries were excluded from Phase 1 for either reason, Phase 2 is your channel. The mechanics are the same: file a CAPE Declaration through the ACE Secure Data Portal, with refunds issued by ACH.

What Is the Difference Between CAPE Phase 1, 2, and 3?

CBP is rolling out CAPE refunds in three phases, each covering a harder-to-process slice of the roughly 53 million IEEPA entries:

1. Phase 1 (live April 20, 2026): unliquidated entries and entries within 80 days of liquidation — the cleanest cases, processed first.
2. Phase 2 (opens June 29, 2026): reconciliation entries and AD/CVD entries.
3. Phase 3 (expected late July 2026): finally-liquidated entries — but available only to importers who filed a protective action at the Court of International Trade.

The Phase 3 limitation matters: if your entries have already finally liquidated and you did NOT file at the CIT, your path to a refund is narrower. That is the single biggest reason trade attorneys urged importers to preserve their rights early.

How Much Has Actually Been Refunded So Far?

It helps to separate the pool from the payments. About $166 billion in IEEPA duties were collected across roughly 330,000 importers and 53 million entries — that is the full refundable pool. But as of mid-June 2026:

• CAPE Phase 1 had accepted claims covering roughly $90 billion, and
• about $23-24 billion had actually been transmitted to the US Treasury for refund.

In other words, the money is flowing, but most of the pool is still in the queue — which is exactly why the Phase 2 and Phase 3 expansions matter. Refunds include statutory interest, and only the IEEPA layer is refundable — Section 232 and Section 301 duties are not.

Is the 10% Section 122 Tariff Still Being Collected?

Yes — for now, and despite a court loss. The 10% Section 122 global tariff that replaced the struck-down IEEPA tariffs has its own legal fight:

• On May 7, 2026, the Court of International Trade ruled the Section 122 tariff unlawful.
• On June 11, 2026, the Federal Circuit granted a stay pending appeal, so CBP continues collecting the 10% while the appeal proceeds.

Importantly, in granting that stay the Federal Circuit found the government had shown a sufficient likelihood of success — a different signal than the IEEPA case, where the courts ultimately sided against the tariffs. So do not assume Section 122 ends the way IEEPA did. Separately, Section 122 carries a 150-day statutory limit and is scheduled to expire around July 24, 2026 unless Congress extends it. One technical note importers get wrong: Section 122 does NOT stack on the metal content of Section 232 steel, aluminum, or copper articles.

Could the Government's Appeal Stop My Refund?

This is the live risk. The government filed notices of appeal on June 2-3, 2026, challenging the CIT's orders that required universal IEEPA refunds — that is, refunds to all importers, not just those who sued. The government's argument leans on Trump v. CASA, the 2025 Supreme Court decision curbing nationwide injunctions, to contend the CIT cannot order relief for importers who never filed.

On June 9, 2026, the CIT held a hearing on whether to lift its own stay of the refund orders; it ended without lifting the stay, but surfaced useful detail on CAPE's scope. The practical takeaway: CAPE keeps running and paying in the meantime, but the universal scope of the refunds is contested on appeal. File promptly and keep your records — a faster, cleaner filing is better protected than a slow one.

What Should Importers Do Before June 29?

1. Confirm ACE Portal access and ACH enrollment. No ACH, no refund — and enrollment is the most common bottleneck.
2. Pull your entry data now. Gather Form 7501 entry summaries for your IEEPA-period entries (China, Canada, and Mexico fentanyl entries from February 4 / March 4, 2025; reciprocal entries from April 2025) through February 24, 2026.
3. Sort entries by phase. Clean unliquidated entries go through Phase 1 now; reconciliation and AD/CVD entries wait for Phase 2 on June 29; finally-liquidated entries may need a CIT filing for Phase 3.
4. Estimate before you file. Know your refundable number — the IEEPA layer only — so you can validate CBP's math.
5. File promptly. With the government appealing the universal refund order, early, clean filings are the best protected.